Picard is known by several different names. Residents of Picardy simply call it picard, but it is more commonly known as chti or chtimi in the south part of French Flanders (around Lille and Douai) and in North-East Artois (around Béthune and Lens), or rouchi around Valenciennes; or simply as patois by Northerners in general. Linguists group all of them under the name Picard. In general, the variety spoken in Picardy is understood by speakers in Nord-Pas-de-Calais and vice versa.

The geographical spread of Picard and Chtimi among the Oïl languages (other than French) can be seen in shades of green and yellow on this map.

Belgium's French Community gave full official recognition to Picard as a regional language along with Walloon, Gaumais (Lorraine), Champenois (Champagne) and Lorraine German in its 1990 decree. The French government has not followed suit and has not recognised Picard as a regional language (in line with its policy of linguistic unity, which allows for only one official language in France), but some reports have recognized Picard as a language distinct from French.

A 1999 report by Bernard Cerquiglini, the director of the Institut national de la langue française (National Institute of the French Language) stated:

Even if it has no official status as a language in France, Picard, along with all the other languages spoken in France, benefits from actions led by the Culture Minister's General Commission on the French Language and the Languages of France (la Délégation générale à la langue française et aux langues de France).

Picard, like French, is one of the langues d'oïl and belongs to the Gallo-Roman family of languages. It consists of all the varieties used for writing (Latin: scriptae) in the north of France from before 1000 (in the south of France at that time the Occitan language was used). Often, the langues d'oïl are referred to simply as Old French.

Picard is phonetically quite different from the central langues d'oïl, which evolved into modern French. Among the most notable traits, the evolution in Picard towards palatalization is less marked than in the central langues d'oïl in which it is particularly striking; /k/ or /ɡ/ before /j/, tonic /i/ and /e/, as well as in front of tonic /a/ and /ɔ/ (the open /o/ of the French porte) in central Old French but not in Picard:

Picard keval ~ Old French cheval (horse; pronounced [tʃeval] rather than the modern [ʃəval]), from *kabal (vulgar Latincaballus): retaining the original /k/ in Picard before tonic /a/ and /ɔ/.

Picard gambe ~ Old French jambe (leg; pronounced [dʒambe] rather than the modern [ʒɑ̃b] – [ʒ] is the ge sound in beige), from *gambe (vulgar Latin gamba): absence of palatalization of /ɡ/ in Picard before tonic /a/ and /ɔ/.

Picard kief ~ Old French chef (leader), from *kaf (Latincaput): less palatalization of /k/ in Picard

/k/ and /ɡ/ + tonic /a/ or /ɔ/: Picard /k/ and /ɡ/ ~ Old French /tʃ/ and /dʒ/.

There are striking differences, such as Picard cachier ('to hunt') ~ Old French chacier, which later took the modern French form of chasser.

Because of the proximity of Paris to the northernmost regions of France, French (that is, the languages that were spoken in and around Paris) greatly influenced Picard and vice versa. The closeness between Picard and French made the former not always be recognised as a language in its own right, as opposed to a "distortion of French" as it is often viewed.

Picard includes a variety of very closely related dialects. It is difficult to list them all accurately in the absence of specific studies on the dialectical variations, but these varieties can probably provisionally be distinguished[citation needed]: Amiénois, Vimeu-Ponthieu, Vermandois, Thiérache, Beauvaisis, "chtimi" (Bassin Minier, Lille), dialects in other regions near Lille (Roubaix, Tourcoing, Mouscron, Comines), "rouchi" (Valenciennois) and Tournaisis, Borain, Artésien rural, Boulonnais.

The varieties are defined by specific phonetic, morphological and lexical traits and sometimes by a distinctive literary tradition.

Picard is not taught in French schools (apart from a few one-off and isolated courses) and is generally only spoken among friends or family members. It has nevertheless been the object of scholarly research at universities in Lille and Amiens, as well as at Indiana University.[4] Since people are now able to move around France more easily than in past centuries, the different varieties of Picard are converging and becoming more similar. In its daily use, Picard is tending to lose its distinctive features and may be confused with regional French. At the same time, even though most Northerners can understand Picard today, fewer and fewer are able to speak it, and people who speak Picard as their first language are increasingly rare, particularly under 50.[5]

Today Picard is primarily a spoken language, but in the medieval period, there is a wealth of literary texts in Picard. However, Picard was not able to compete with French to become the interregional literary language and was slowly reduced to the status of a regional language.

A more recent body of Picard literature, written during the last two centuries, also exists. Modern written Picard is generally a transcription of the spoken language. For that reason, words are often spelled in a variety of different ways (in the same way that English and French were before they were standardised).

One system of spelling for Picard words is very similar to that of French. It is undoubtedly the easiest for French speakers to understand but can also contribute the stereotype that Picard is only a corruption of French rather than a language in its own right.

Various spelling methods have been proposed since the 1960s to offset the disadvantage and to give Picard a visual identity that is distinct from French. There is now a consensus, at least between universities, in favor of the written form known as Feller-Carton (based on the Walloon spelling system, which was developed by Jules Feller, and adapted for Picard by Professor Fernand Carton).